Jane Stillwater is a freelance journalist, war correspondent, blogger, political Cassandra and author of "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," now available on Amazon.com. Her latest motto is "Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world."

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

The Contender: What will the US do after its boxing career is over?"Of course boxing is fine for now," I'll bet Sly Stallone's mom used to tell him, "but what are you going to do afterwards? You gotta have a real career to back you up." And as it goes with boxing, so does it go with war and empire.

Of course wars are like championship bouts in Vegas. They're glamorous and interesting and lucrative -- but a war, like a boxer's career, can't go on forever. Maybe you can last a few years in the ring but sooner or later the last round ends and, if you have foolishly squandered your prize money, you have nothing to fall back on. Look at Rome, the Mongols, Napoleon, Tojo's Japan, the Third Reich and the USSR. All their time and money went into waging war and they had no retirement plan! Too much emphasis on K.O.s and not enough on 401(k).

Of course Rumsfeld, Bush and the Pentagon knocked out Iraq in the first round but now -- with all these guys's money spent on high-living and with nothing saved -- they are becoming just another bunch of punch-drunk has-beens with no Plan B.

And what about America? What will happen to our country when the U.S. has lost its heavy-weight title -- which it soon will because the euro is about to K.O. the dollar bigtime -- and has no career skills at home to fall back on 'cause they've all been outsourced to empire?

America needs to follow Sly's mom's advice and prepare for the future. Firing those bogus fight promoters in the Pentagon and taking away Bush's "golden" gloves would be a good first step.